So this happened today. I was taking a walk in Hellbrunn, up the hill and then the unofficial path with the gazillion warnings along the edge of the rock face above the zoo and at one point I was standing barely two steps away from a 70+ meter drop and thinking, not really about jumping, because if I'm ever going to kill myself, that won't be the way to go (what if I change my mind halfway down? gah.), but, just very aware that if I take those two steps it's really all over, and do I actually want this? looking straight down into the zoo, and when I lifted my eyes a bit there was a griffon vulture sort of just hovering on the wind slightly below me, slowly circling until it was out of sight, and then returned for a second, smaller circle before it disappeared completely.

It's not that big or that surprising a thing really, they used to have a breeding program here and we used to see vultures all the time sitting and possibly nesting in the crevices in the rock face, but I haven't seen any in a long while now, and it was unexpected, especially the point of view and angle as well as the size of it, with its wings outstretched like that. I don't believe in signs and omens, but just for a moment if felt a little bit like something like that, and it did me jerk out of my apathy.

(And then I overdid it with the walk and irritated a muscle knot.)

(Which, on the other hand, doesn't matter a lot at the moment, because bigger hiking tours are out anyway because of the snow. I turned the heat on today because it's cold.)